nekare
in
omniocular
Crisscrossed Pattern
Title: Crisscrossed Pattern
Author: nekare
Rating: R
Word Count: 1727
Summary: Bill never feels as lonely as he does when in missions with Shacklebolt, worry for his family washing the world's colors off.
Warnings: HBP spoilers. Beta-ed by the lovely why_me_why_not. Bill/Fleur on the side.
Author's note/Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. Written for the omniocular's January challenge, my characters were Bill Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Bill has been married for half a year already, but he hasn’t grown tired of feeling the silk of Fleur’s hair between his fingers, pale contrast with the vibrancy of his own coloring.
Bill has been married for half a year already, and the war has been raging for two and a half. Sometimes, at his gloomiest, he wonders if it’s ever going to end.
---
Whenever he looks at himself in a mirror, he can’t help but think of the what-ifs (what if he had died), of all the scars he could have avoided while remaining indifferent to the outside world, if he had married and lived in a simple cottage at the south of the France as Fleur had muttered to him before going to sleep instead of staying and fighting for crumbling beliefs.
Nothing is as simple as it had been when he was a child, when Slytherins were the enemy to all of his younger siblings and a smile was just that, not a way to hide the pain. Now Death Eaters have faces when they capture them, and Muggle children have faces when they’re found dead (eyes open and mind shut) on the bloody snow.
Nothing is what it seems anymore, and Bill has a crisscrossing pattern on his face to prove it.
---
Bill had asked specifically not to be partnered with any of his relatives for Order duties. Moody had tried changing his mind, saying that he would work far more easily with any of them than he would with a stranger, but he kept refusing until Moody finally gave up.
He never told Moody the reason through those first months in which the former Auror had taken the reigns of the Order after Dumbledore’s death, after Bill’s wedding that was a spot of warmth and color amidst the never ending grayness of autumn. He knows he couldn’t live with the idea of having his family’s lives on his hands and letting them down (letting them die). He suffers enough every time some of them leaves on a mission they can’t talk about, and his nightmares are a mingled swirl of bright red and pale blond hair tainted with ashes.
Instead, he’s partnered with Kingsley Shacklebolt.
---
They will never be true friends per se, Bill knows, but there’s this sort of camaraderie and companionship between them, born out of secrets shared and life debts with each other.
There’s never much talking between them, even when Bill misses the exuberant chattering of the Burrow (constant explosions that sound merry in his mind, sweet pies baking in the oven in a way his friends had thought only happened on books), but as children die in the middle of a pointless war, laughing sounds empty and wrong to somber ears.
So they don’t talk, and he misses Fleur’s missing consonants in silence.
---
“Good night,” he says as he slips into bed next to his wife, startling her to consciousness as she had made him promise he’d do (he still feels guilty about it, but the selfish part in him craves the relieved sighs coming out of her lips whenever she first notices him). Fleur lets out a gasp and clings groggily to his neck, saying I missed you a thousand times against his skin.
There are still remnants of the Dark Magic he had to break licking at his fingers (his brain), leaving smudged fingerprints on her pale skin that vanish in seconds, eradicated with the magical quality of her Veela side running in her blood, evened out and forgotten at last.
(It’s all Arithmancy, he thinks, Dark times Dark equals Light).
She cleanses him, both metaphorically and physically, and when he wakes up the next day, tangled with her soft limbs, skin pressed tightly against skin, he feels whole again.
(Then he leaves again, and a portion of his heart remains with her every time he walks out of the door).
---
“Is there something you regret the most?” asks Shacklebolt with a voice deeper than his usual, constricted with the rubble that hangs in the air. They’re sitting in a ditch somewhere, nowhere, it seems; an impromptu trench that doesn’t do much to hide them from whatever Death Eaters might still be around. And yet they cannot go away, cannot move from their places, as Harry, practically his surrogate brother, is looking for something in the area, and it’s up to them to keep him from harm (Ron and Hermione are there too, and Bill wants to be sick from the worry).
There had been two Death Eaters on the grounds when they had first arrived, and although the tussle hadn’t lasted for long, both of them are still slightly out of breath, and Bill has a gaping wound on his thigh. The blood has frozen, though, and Bill only gasps in pain every few minutes.
“I don’t know,” Bill says, moving his fingers so they won’t freeze. It’s the middle of January, and the ground is covered not so much with snow, but with a thin layer of ice that breaks with every footstep, cracking and sounding just like the broken dreams of every soldier fighting for the cause. “I don’t think I’ve ever had sex outdoors.” he says, and the fake humor feels void of cheer even to himself.
“I’m serious, Weasley. You know there’s always the chance we won’t return home.” Shacklebolt is staring intently at a map of the area Remus had helped them to animate. Bill is irritated for a second, the raw truth of the statement making him slightly ill, but then he remembers this is just the way Shacklebolt is, rough and straight to the point, and this is only the other man’s own way of coping with the thin balance of life and death they seem to be trying to equilibrate.
Bill sighs, breath clouding in front of him. He stretches a little and looks backwards, only a patch of red-hair visible from the other side of the dirt mound. He can barely see the house from here, naked trees twisting in a spidery web of blackness that block his view from the house that seems ready to fall to pieces, a snake skin nailed to the door in such a gruesome way that it makes Bill shudder, exuding fear from every single pore of his body. His brother is in that house, and Bill is no fool; he can gather from pieces of conversations that it had something to do with Voldemort.
There’s a hole in his glove, his heart finger touching the cold ground, and some of the ice seems to seep into his veins, freezing his mind and judgment until the only thing he wants to do is grab the children and run out of there.
“I know.” Shacklebolt looks mildly surprised that he even answered at all, and Bill starts muttering again. “I regret I haven’t spent that much time with my family lately. I regret that I’ve never taken Fleur to Egypt with me. I regret that I let Ron came here tonight.” He stops for a moment, and then he adds, “I regret that I went to Hogwarts the day Dumbledore died, but I know I shouldn’t. I’m selfish, and I can’t seem to help it.” He fingers his scars idly, almost unconsciously, and he stops when he realizes what he’s doing.
“Yes, well, that’s human nature for you.” Shacklebolt sends a tracking spell around the perimeter as he talks, never one to be inactive. “You’ve every right to feel like that, but remember that you managed to stop Greyback for a while. If you hadn’t, maybe an innocent child would have died.”
“I know,” Bill repeats, feeling as if the muttered conversation had ran away from his hands.
“Scars are trophies, Weasley. Don’t forget.” Shacklebolt’s mind is forged like one of the warriors of old, and Bill could easily picture him in shining armor, a winged helmet over his shiny head. He chuckles a little, thinking mainly of what the twins would have said about his wild imagination, and to his surprise, that little laugh feels like a bit of warmth to his wary heart. “So that’s it? No more regrets?”
“No. I’ve had a good life,” Bill says, and he knows he means it. “What about you?”
“I always wanted a child,” Shacklebolt says looking ahead, almost instantly, and then they both fall silent.
Confessions have been made, and they’re ready for death now. The knowledge of this doesn’t help Bill’s state of mind in the slightest.
But then again, nothing could.
---
Two hours later, a ghostly terrier shoots up to the sky, and the appearance of Ron’s Patronus makes him sag with relief. His own Patronus leaves his wand, and his hands are shaking so much he wonders how the silvery fog can look steady. Both men turn to the house, and they manage to see the three teenagers in front of that blood-chilling door. Harry nods gravely in their direction, and with a pop, the three of them are gone.
Bill puts his head on his forearm, curled on the highest point of the ditch, and lets out a sigh that doesn’t take away all of his fears, but helps nonetheless. He turns to Shacklebolt, and there’s no need for words before they know what exactly to do next.
They Disapparate, and Bill manages to see the snake skin moving slightly with the breeze just a moment before the Order Headquarters materialize in front of his eyes.
---
He bathes with Fleur the next day, the longest shower in his life, and he sobs quietly (out of relief, out of fear, out of everything, it would seem) as he kisses her skin, as she moans pressed flush against him, arms around his neck, kissing his scars in that toe-curling new habit that always makes him love her even more. There’s desperation in the way they rock together, in the way their hands stray and touch with water so warm hitting their flushed skins that it almost feels like needles.
(Mixing with pleasure, mixing with life).
Bill has almost forgotten about his wound, but the water runs dark pink at their feet, and as he comes (the sound of water trickling and Fleur’s screams filling his ears), his vision paints itself the same color.
Author: nekare
Rating: R
Word Count: 1727
Summary: Bill never feels as lonely as he does when in missions with Shacklebolt, worry for his family washing the world's colors off.
Warnings: HBP spoilers. Beta-ed by the lovely why_me_why_not. Bill/Fleur on the side.
Author's note/Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. Written for the omniocular's January challenge, my characters were Bill Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Bill has been married for half a year already, but he hasn’t grown tired of feeling the silk of Fleur’s hair between his fingers, pale contrast with the vibrancy of his own coloring.
Bill has been married for half a year already, and the war has been raging for two and a half. Sometimes, at his gloomiest, he wonders if it’s ever going to end.
---
Whenever he looks at himself in a mirror, he can’t help but think of the what-ifs (what if he had died), of all the scars he could have avoided while remaining indifferent to the outside world, if he had married and lived in a simple cottage at the south of the France as Fleur had muttered to him before going to sleep instead of staying and fighting for crumbling beliefs.
Nothing is as simple as it had been when he was a child, when Slytherins were the enemy to all of his younger siblings and a smile was just that, not a way to hide the pain. Now Death Eaters have faces when they capture them, and Muggle children have faces when they’re found dead (eyes open and mind shut) on the bloody snow.
Nothing is what it seems anymore, and Bill has a crisscrossing pattern on his face to prove it.
---
Bill had asked specifically not to be partnered with any of his relatives for Order duties. Moody had tried changing his mind, saying that he would work far more easily with any of them than he would with a stranger, but he kept refusing until Moody finally gave up.
He never told Moody the reason through those first months in which the former Auror had taken the reigns of the Order after Dumbledore’s death, after Bill’s wedding that was a spot of warmth and color amidst the never ending grayness of autumn. He knows he couldn’t live with the idea of having his family’s lives on his hands and letting them down (letting them die). He suffers enough every time some of them leaves on a mission they can’t talk about, and his nightmares are a mingled swirl of bright red and pale blond hair tainted with ashes.
Instead, he’s partnered with Kingsley Shacklebolt.
---
They will never be true friends per se, Bill knows, but there’s this sort of camaraderie and companionship between them, born out of secrets shared and life debts with each other.
There’s never much talking between them, even when Bill misses the exuberant chattering of the Burrow (constant explosions that sound merry in his mind, sweet pies baking in the oven in a way his friends had thought only happened on books), but as children die in the middle of a pointless war, laughing sounds empty and wrong to somber ears.
So they don’t talk, and he misses Fleur’s missing consonants in silence.
---
“Good night,” he says as he slips into bed next to his wife, startling her to consciousness as she had made him promise he’d do (he still feels guilty about it, but the selfish part in him craves the relieved sighs coming out of her lips whenever she first notices him). Fleur lets out a gasp and clings groggily to his neck, saying I missed you a thousand times against his skin.
There are still remnants of the Dark Magic he had to break licking at his fingers (his brain), leaving smudged fingerprints on her pale skin that vanish in seconds, eradicated with the magical quality of her Veela side running in her blood, evened out and forgotten at last.
(It’s all Arithmancy, he thinks, Dark times Dark equals Light).
She cleanses him, both metaphorically and physically, and when he wakes up the next day, tangled with her soft limbs, skin pressed tightly against skin, he feels whole again.
(Then he leaves again, and a portion of his heart remains with her every time he walks out of the door).
---
“Is there something you regret the most?” asks Shacklebolt with a voice deeper than his usual, constricted with the rubble that hangs in the air. They’re sitting in a ditch somewhere, nowhere, it seems; an impromptu trench that doesn’t do much to hide them from whatever Death Eaters might still be around. And yet they cannot go away, cannot move from their places, as Harry, practically his surrogate brother, is looking for something in the area, and it’s up to them to keep him from harm (Ron and Hermione are there too, and Bill wants to be sick from the worry).
There had been two Death Eaters on the grounds when they had first arrived, and although the tussle hadn’t lasted for long, both of them are still slightly out of breath, and Bill has a gaping wound on his thigh. The blood has frozen, though, and Bill only gasps in pain every few minutes.
“I don’t know,” Bill says, moving his fingers so they won’t freeze. It’s the middle of January, and the ground is covered not so much with snow, but with a thin layer of ice that breaks with every footstep, cracking and sounding just like the broken dreams of every soldier fighting for the cause. “I don’t think I’ve ever had sex outdoors.” he says, and the fake humor feels void of cheer even to himself.
“I’m serious, Weasley. You know there’s always the chance we won’t return home.” Shacklebolt is staring intently at a map of the area Remus had helped them to animate. Bill is irritated for a second, the raw truth of the statement making him slightly ill, but then he remembers this is just the way Shacklebolt is, rough and straight to the point, and this is only the other man’s own way of coping with the thin balance of life and death they seem to be trying to equilibrate.
Bill sighs, breath clouding in front of him. He stretches a little and looks backwards, only a patch of red-hair visible from the other side of the dirt mound. He can barely see the house from here, naked trees twisting in a spidery web of blackness that block his view from the house that seems ready to fall to pieces, a snake skin nailed to the door in such a gruesome way that it makes Bill shudder, exuding fear from every single pore of his body. His brother is in that house, and Bill is no fool; he can gather from pieces of conversations that it had something to do with Voldemort.
There’s a hole in his glove, his heart finger touching the cold ground, and some of the ice seems to seep into his veins, freezing his mind and judgment until the only thing he wants to do is grab the children and run out of there.
“I know.” Shacklebolt looks mildly surprised that he even answered at all, and Bill starts muttering again. “I regret I haven’t spent that much time with my family lately. I regret that I’ve never taken Fleur to Egypt with me. I regret that I let Ron came here tonight.” He stops for a moment, and then he adds, “I regret that I went to Hogwarts the day Dumbledore died, but I know I shouldn’t. I’m selfish, and I can’t seem to help it.” He fingers his scars idly, almost unconsciously, and he stops when he realizes what he’s doing.
“Yes, well, that’s human nature for you.” Shacklebolt sends a tracking spell around the perimeter as he talks, never one to be inactive. “You’ve every right to feel like that, but remember that you managed to stop Greyback for a while. If you hadn’t, maybe an innocent child would have died.”
“I know,” Bill repeats, feeling as if the muttered conversation had ran away from his hands.
“Scars are trophies, Weasley. Don’t forget.” Shacklebolt’s mind is forged like one of the warriors of old, and Bill could easily picture him in shining armor, a winged helmet over his shiny head. He chuckles a little, thinking mainly of what the twins would have said about his wild imagination, and to his surprise, that little laugh feels like a bit of warmth to his wary heart. “So that’s it? No more regrets?”
“No. I’ve had a good life,” Bill says, and he knows he means it. “What about you?”
“I always wanted a child,” Shacklebolt says looking ahead, almost instantly, and then they both fall silent.
Confessions have been made, and they’re ready for death now. The knowledge of this doesn’t help Bill’s state of mind in the slightest.
But then again, nothing could.
---
Two hours later, a ghostly terrier shoots up to the sky, and the appearance of Ron’s Patronus makes him sag with relief. His own Patronus leaves his wand, and his hands are shaking so much he wonders how the silvery fog can look steady. Both men turn to the house, and they manage to see the three teenagers in front of that blood-chilling door. Harry nods gravely in their direction, and with a pop, the three of them are gone.
Bill puts his head on his forearm, curled on the highest point of the ditch, and lets out a sigh that doesn’t take away all of his fears, but helps nonetheless. He turns to Shacklebolt, and there’s no need for words before they know what exactly to do next.
They Disapparate, and Bill manages to see the snake skin moving slightly with the breeze just a moment before the Order Headquarters materialize in front of his eyes.
---
He bathes with Fleur the next day, the longest shower in his life, and he sobs quietly (out of relief, out of fear, out of everything, it would seem) as he kisses her skin, as she moans pressed flush against him, arms around his neck, kissing his scars in that toe-curling new habit that always makes him love her even more. There’s desperation in the way they rock together, in the way their hands stray and touch with water so warm hitting their flushed skins that it almost feels like needles.
(Mixing with pleasure, mixing with life).
Bill has almost forgotten about his wound, but the water runs dark pink at their feet, and as he comes (the sound of water trickling and Fleur’s screams filling his ears), his vision paints itself the same color.